Meople News: Rampage in the West

In Z-Man Games’ newsletter number 28 presents us three new upcoming games from the Z-Man. In Grimoire players compete for completion of their quest by selecting spells from their grimoire, but the more powerful the spell is the longer it takes to prepare, giving its caster a later pick of cards. Wok Star is a cooperative game with time limit: players serve customers in their Chinese restaurant in order to pay money and pay back their loan, but every customer not served in time gives the restaurant a bad reputation. Dark Minions puts you on the far end of the morality spectrum as an evil overlord, throwing dice and pushing their minions around to terrorise the realm. More details can be found in the newsletter.

Pegasus Spiele has released Strasbourg – Die Zeit der Zünfte (Strasbourg – The Age of Guilds) this week. Object of the game is to set all your family member up with a cushy job in one of the guilds using your political influence – in order to gain political influence. Being designed by Stefan Feld, the creator of Macao and Die Speicherstadt among many others, I fully expect Strasbourg to confront you with the same agonising decisions those two demand. In fact, when I get a chance to try it I demand to be confronted with that kind of decision!

Shards of the Throne, Fantasy Flight’s expansion to the classic Twilight Imperium looks intriguing in the newest preview. Different kinds of representatives to be sent to the Galactic Council make votes there a lot more exciting (and deadly). Promissory Notes are diplomatic bribes given to another player in return for a favour, and give him the chance to enforce your side of the deal later, unlike standard promises which can and should be broken whenever possible. Also from Fantasy Flight comes this announcement of Deadwood, a wild west tale where all the cowboys wear black hats as they vie for money and control in the not-so-peaceful town of Deadwood, right next to the railway tracks.

And if you’re tired of all those games that only deal with building and construction: Antoine Bauza and Ludovic Maublanc are working on a game about pure destruction. Antoine has details here (for the non-French-speakers conveniently googleated). Rampage was inspired by monster movies like Gozilla and Cloverfield and will give you a chance to stomp around the city in their minivan-sized shoes. The photos of the 3D prototype show buildings that can be knocked over for maximum chaos and spread escaping meeple inhabitants automatically (they are all load-bearing meeple …). I really hope to see this published soon because both the idea and the prototype photos have me drooling.

This weeks featured photo was taken in Phnom Pehn, Cambodia by Edson Walker and shared  on Flickr with CC-BY license. You can find the original here, and while you’re there look at the rest of the Cambodia set, it’s small but beautiful.

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